My favourite quotations

The studio  was filled  with  the  rich odour

of roses,  and when the light summer wind

stirred amidst the trees of the garden there

came  through  the open door  the  heavy

scent of the lilac,  or the more delicate

perfume of the pink-flowering thorn'

           Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

     
         'It is a truth universally acknowledge that
          a single man, in possession of a good fortune,
          must be in want of a wife'
                                Jane Austen, Pride & Prejudice


                                                       'Listen to them - the children of the night -
                                                        What music they make!'
                                                                                       Bram Stoker, Dracula

'What a lark! What a plunge! For so it had always seemed to her when, with a little

squeak of the hinges.  which  she could  hear now,  she had burst open  the French

windows  and plunged  at  Bourton into the open air.  How fresh,  how calm, stiller

than this of course, the air was in the early morning;  like the flap of a wave;  the

kiss of a  wave; chill and sharp and yet solemn...'

                                                              Virginia Woolf, Mrs Dalloway

                                                 'It was on a dreary night of November

                                                 that I beheld the accomplishment of my  toils'.

                                                                                       Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

          'She sat at the window watching the evening

           invade the avenue''

                           James Joyce, Eveline

                                                                          

                               ' "Eustace! Eustace!"  Hilda's tones were always urgent;

                                 it might not be anything very serious'

                                                           L.P. Hartley, Eustace and Hilda

'Under certain  circumstances there are few hours in life
more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony
known as afternoon tea'
                                       Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady

                             'Mr Utterson the lawyer was a man of a rugged countenance 

                              that  was  never  lighted by  a smile;  cold, scanty  and 

                              embarassed in discourse; backward in sentiment;

                               lean, long, dusty, dreary and yet

                               somehow lovable'

                                                 R. L Stevenson, The Strange Case of
                                                                          Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde

         'In vain have I struggled.  It will not do.
          My feelings will not be repressed.
          You must allow me to tell you
          how ardently I admire
          and love you.
                            Jane Austen, Pride & Prejudice


                                     'I want you to believe... in things that you cannot...'
                                                                                    Bram Stoker, Dracula

'One might put down the hot-water can quite composely.
The lustre had left her. Yet it was extraordinary to see
her again, older, happier, less lovely'
                                                      Virginia Woolf, Mrs Dalloway

                                    'The soul is a terrible reality. It can be bought, and sold,
                                     and bartered away. it can be poisoned, or made perfect'
                                                                          R. L Stevenson, The Strange Case of
                                                                                                   Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde